Auriemma Pleased Huskies Were Able To Deliver Knockout Punch

The Huskies gave Auriemma what he asked for Sunday and knocked out Wisconsin-Green Bay.

ESTERO, Fla. – For nearly the first 15 minutes of Sunday's Gulf Coast Showcase championship game, UConn and Wisconsin-Green Bay were locked in the embrace boxers call a clinch.

The teams were in the middle of the ring, in this case the chilled floor of a converted hockey arena, looking for space. The score was 26-26 with 5:32 remaining in the first half.

UConn has been in this position many times. Green Bay, a Midwest power during Kevin Borseth's coaching career, is a skilled, fundamentally sound program that fears no team.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma would later say the Phoenix reminded him of teams he coached a quarter-century ago, ones that respected the power base, but refused to be intimidated by it. He said he warned his team that Green Bay would not quit, that it would require a knockout to defeat it.

"They are not going to go away and lose," Auriemma said. "That's not who they are. That's not what their culture is."

So the Huskies gave their coach what he asked for — they knocked out the contender.

"I've only seen [that ability to dominate] in glimpses in practice," Auriemma said. "It's not something I thought the team had completely embraced to this point. So I'm thrilled we were able to come out that way in the second half. And it happened quickly; it was an eight-point game and then it was a 20-point game."

Over the final 25 minutes, UConn (5-1) pummeled the Phoenix, outscoring them 63-27 to win, 89-53.

"For sure, I believe our defense got a lot better this weekend than it was earlier this season," Auriemma said. "And offensively, we are getting better production from more people than we were two weeks ago. … We are a much better team right now than we were on Friday."

The victory, UConn's fourth straight since the loss to Stanford, was the last bluster of a tsunami that roughed up southwest Florida. Over 72 hours, the Huskies beat College of Charleston, Vanderbilt and Green Bay by a combined 136 points.

In the process, this new team, with a new starting lineup, might have found its swagger just in time for Saturday's showdown with No. 2 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

And that's something they say was missing when they lost in overtime Nov. 17 to the Cardinal, ending their 47-game winning streak.

"We got a little bit of our toughness back," guard Moriah Jefferson said. "For the most part, we hit people first and that's something we have to continually do to be the best team we can be."

The infusion of Morgan Tuck and freshman Kia Nurse into the starting lineup has brought the team to a full gallop. Tuck, hobbled by injuries in her career, has been a force in the post. And Nurse, the freshman from Canada, has been superior. She was the tournament MVP. Nurse also was named AAC freshman of the week Monday.

Nurse, who scored all of her 16 points in the first half, was in the middle of a 13-0 run that enabled UConn to take a 39-26 lead. She was the only Husky to play every second of the half and she did not have a turnover.

After Green Bay scored the first basket of the second half to cut UConn's lead to 39-30, the Huskies really got down to business. They held Green Bay scoreless for 5:06, running off a 14-0 run to open a 53-32 lead.

The fight was over. But in the process, the fight was reintroduced to UConn's system.

Green Bay's tactic on offense was to try to make three-pointers; almost half its 58 shots (30) were from behind the arc. It made just nine.

With 12:38 to play, Breanna Stewart was sent hurtling into the scorer's table. There was a foul called — on Stewart.

"We kind of ran into each other, and I seemed to take the hit on the scorer's table," Stewart said. I didn't know what the call was, but once they called it on me … everyone was kind of in an uproar."

That included Auriemma. On a steady simmer the entire game, working in and out of his own clinch with the protective Chris Dailey, Auriemma unfurled a stream of colorful adjectives, clearly audible in the arena's lower bowl, and drew a technical.

The Huskies led 57-32 at that point. And seeing Auriemma get hit with a technical sent a charge through the team.

"When Coach puts his neck out on the line for you like that, and gets a technical, that's good to see," Stewart said. "It makes you feel good just because he's sticking up for you. But we knew we just had to take it to another notch."